A MULTICULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

The Society for Descriptive Psychology www.sdp.org A MULTICULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY Peter G. Ossorio 1982 Published in Advances in Descriptive Psychology, ...
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The Society for Descriptive Psychology www.sdp.org

A MULTICULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY Peter G. Ossorio 1982 Published in Advances in Descriptive Psychology, Volume 3, pages 13-44. Editors: Keith E. Davis and Raymond M. Bergner, 1983. Originally published as LRI Report No. 29. ABSTRACT The problem of doing justice to both uniformities and differences with respect to the structural aspects of behavior is addressed. The implications of the Significance parameter of behavior are developed in the form of a conceptual framework for a multicultural psychology. Problems of delineating and differentiating cultural perspectives in nonethnocentric ways are addressed. The exemplification of cultural perspectives in scientific methodology is touched upon.

Problems of uniformity and multiplicity have been with us since before the days of ancient Greece, and there is no reason to suppose that we will shortly have outlived or outlasted them. Thus, an essential constituent of our scientific apparatus consists of conceptual and technical ways of dealing with these issues. From a formal standpoint, a major resource for doing so is the use of Paradigm Case Formulations, Parametric Analyses, and Calculational Systems (Ossorio, 198la). These conceptual-notational forms also serve to introduce psychological subject matter in a nonreductive way. With such devices we have dealt with the issues of uniformity and multiplicity in a variety of contexts. For example, in the major task of dealing formally with the general reality concepts of Object, Process, Event, and State of Affairs (Ossorio, 1971/1978), the Transition Rules provided the universal formulation, and the descriptive formats enabled us to distinguish one object, process, etc., from another. A similar situation holds for behavior and persons. The universal formulation for behavior is given by the calculational system associated with the Intentional Action formula. The various behavior formulas, being parametric analyses, directly provide canonical formats for distinguishing and characterizing different behaviors or types of behavior. Likewise, with respect to persons, the life history definition provides a universal formulation, and the associated parametric analysis, the system of personal characteristics, provides the capability for distinguishing one person or one kind of person from another. It would appear, therefore, that the formal problems of sameness and difference in regard to persons and behavior has been sufficiently dealt with. However, one could argue otherwise, and it is this possibility which is of present interest. The opening wedge for this argument is given by the customary explication of Descriptive Psychology as "A set of distinctions designed to provide formal access to all the facts and possible facts concerning persons and their behavior." The operative Copyright 1982 by Peter G. Ossorio – Page 1

A Multicultural Psychology phrase here is "provide formal access to". A conceptual-notational system provides formal access to a phenomenon when it provides everything needed for an explicit, systematic delineation of that phenomenon in its various aspects. For example, formal access to the game of chess is provided by a system which enables us to distinguish between chess and other forms of behavior, and to designate the elements of the game (e.g., White, Black, board, bishop, pawn, etc.), and the constraints on what is allowable. And similarly for formal access to any other form of behavior. In contrast, it is observation which provides access to historical states of affairs. No conceptual-notational system by itself would allow us to conclude that chess is actually played today and is called "chess", that it was invented where and when it was, that it spread in the ways and to the places it did, and that the option of playing without a visible board and pieces is one which people do take, and so on. But if we did not have these already available conceptually as possibilities, we could not establish them observationally as actualities. If we did not have the concept of "game" and of chess as a particular game, we could not establish by observation that the game of chess is actually played. To the extent that our conceptual-notational system does provide formal access to all the possibilities concerning persons and their behavior, we have some assurance that what we conclude on the basis of observation is, to the greatest extent possible, a reflection of the phenomenon itself rather than of an idiosyncratic set of theoretical or taxonomic concepts. With this preamble, then, we can say that the most extensively developed portions of Descriptive Psychology give us most effectively a classificatory access to the possibilities concerning people and their behavior. What is equally important is to provide adequate structural access. The contrast can be exemplified with familiar examples. Consider, for example, that both "red" and "drawer" are categories for classifying objects. For example, we can say of a given object that it is or isn't red or that it is or isn't a drawer. Moreover, we can go on to distinguish shades of red and types of drawers. However, implicit in the category of drawer is a structural description of the larger object(s) that a drawer is part of. It is the part-whole relation that makes a drawer a drawer rather than, say, a shallow box, and that is why that part-whole description is implicit in classifying something as a "drawer." In contrast, "red" has only categorical contrasts (blue, yellow, etc.); it has no corresponding structural implications or commitments. The general formula for behavior does have such commitments, and it is these which need to be articulated effectively: = = The Personal Characteristic (PC) parameter provides some formal access to one partwhole relationship, that is, the relation of a given behavior to the life history of which it is a part. Such a relationship is also implied by the Identity (I) parameter, for if every behavior is someone's behavior, then every behavior must have some place in some person's life. Of more direct concern here, the Significance (S) parameter provides an opportunity to represent the part-whole relation between a given, historically occurring behavior and the historical, societal, and cultural configurations within which it can and does take place. The Significance parameter is one whose values are specified by specifying the behavior or behavior patterns which are enacted by enacting the behavior in question. Page 2

A Multicultural Psychology The notion of engaging in one behavior (or one sort of behavior or one pattern of behavior) by engaging in another behavior (or another sort, etc.) was developed some time ago as one of the commonly used forms of behavior description, that is, Symbolic Behavior Description. Examples of this form of description are common. They include the following: (a) Q1. A1. Q2. A2. Q3. A3.

What is she doing? She's disconnecting the spark plugs. What is she doing by doing that? She's tuning the engine. What is she doing by tuning the engine? She's getting ready to take a vacation.

(b) Q1. What is he doing? A1. He's writing on the pad. Q2. What is he doing by writing on the pad? A2. He's taking notes. Q3. What is he doing by taking notes? A3. He's completing the course. Q4. What is he doing by completing the course? A4. He's getting a degree. Q5. What is he doing by getting a degree? A5. He's becoming a psychologist. Q6. What is he doing by becoming a psychologist? A6. He is living the life of a professional psychologist. Q7. What is he doing by doing that? A7. He's living the life of an Englishman, and that's a (his) way of doing that. Note that the initial answer to "What is he doing?" may be any of the answers given in these brief dialogues and that we may move in either direction in the series unless we begin at the limit of the series. (A7 is a way of announcing such a limit). Q1. What is he doing? Al. He's getting a degree. Q2. How is he doing that? A2. By completing the course (among other things). Q3. How is he doing that? A3. By taking notes (among other things). The answers to "What is he doing by doing that?" take us successively into more and more extensive reference to the behavioral patterns of the culture. It is these cultural structures which are the wholes of which particular behaviors are parts. And it is these wholes for which a structural delineation is essential. Since every human behavior is essentially the historical realization of cultural patterns, understanding the behavior Page 3

A Multicultural Psychology requires a knowledge of what those patterns are and what part the individual behavior has in those patterns. (If this raises the specter of mechanization, note that "realizes a pattern" is much more like "makes sense" than it is like "executes a computer program.") As usual, the historical impetus for doing some systematic formulation in regard to the structural aspects of behavior came from a number of practical concerns. Among these was the experience of Chicano graduate students in clinical psychology during their internships or other clinical work settings. The issues encountered are summarized in "The Infamous Three Questions." 1. "What is the difference between Chicanos and Anglos? Everybody says there is such a difference. What is it?" 2. "What do you have to do that's different when you do therapy with Chicanos as against when you do therapy with Anglos?" 3. "Why can't you give me direct answers to these simple questions?" The conceptual and methodological interest of these questions is that since the differences alluded to in the first two questions are neither subtle nor esoteric, it seems obvious that some simple, direct answers ought to be forthcoming. What we find, however, is that they are not forthcoming. Efforts to state simple universals with respect to ethnic groups fail, first because of the diversity within ethnic groups, and second because no particular feature is unique to any ethnic group (and if there were one, it would be repudiated as being essential). This state of affairs is not unique to ethnic groups. It is also the case that no particular feature of an activity such as playing Bridge or doing therapy with Anglo-Americans is unique to that activity, and if there were it would generally be dismissed as a nonessential historical accident. Hence, the third question. Let us consider the last two questions first. In this connection the heuristic image of The Bridge Game provides us with some insight. Consider the following dialogue: Wil: Gil: Wil: Gil: Wil: Gil: Wil: Gil: Wil: Gil: Wil: Gil: Wil: Gil:

Do you know how to play Bridge? No. Now, wait a minute. You know what an ordinary deck of 52 playing cards is, don't you? Yes. You know how to distinguish and separate out the four suits, i.e., hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades, don't you? Yes. You know how to distinguish and separate out the different values, i.e., Ace, King, Queen, etc., etc., don't you? Yes. You know how to shuffle a deck of cards, don't you? Yes. And you know how to take tricks with cards and how to trump a card? Yes. And you know how to combine suits and values like 2 hearts or 3 spades and so on. Yes… Page 4

A Multicultural Psychology Wil: Gil:

Well, now, look. There isn't anything that is done in a game of Bridge that you haven't said you know how to do. So what do you mean, you don't know how to play Bridge? Oh, my!

Indeed, it is the case that Gil can know how to do everything that is done in playing Bridge and yet know nothing about playing Bridge. Intuitively, we recognize this immediately. But it is of some value to be clear about why this can happen. For understanding the general case, we may call upon the notion of a Task Analysis (Ossorio, 1971 1978, pp. 59 ff.) and its relation to a Process Description. A Process Description of process P (e.g., P = Playing Bridge) involves the representation of the various sequences of happenings each of which would constitute the occurrence of process P on a given occasion. In a Task Analysis, we analyze a desired state of affairs, PP (e.g., PP = Playing Bridge) into subachievements Al, A2…AN, such that we can accomplish PP by accomplishing Al, A2…AN. Since it is a recursive procedure, we may further analyze A1 into subachievements B1, B2…BK, and so on for A2, etc. The key consideration is that although we can accomplish PP by accomplishing Al, A2…AN, it does not follow (and generally will not be the case) that whenever one accomplishes Al, A2…AN, one also accomplishes PP. Hence, one can know how to do each of Al, A2…AN without knowing how to do PP. (See Ossorio and Popov, 1981.) In the case of Wil and Gil, Wil has, in effect, performed a Task Analysis of playing Bridge. The list of items which he presents to Gil corresponds to A I, A2…AN. One accomplishes the playing of Bridge by shuffling, bidding, dealing and so on. It does not follow, however, that whenever one does these various things, one plays Bridge. That is why one can know how to do each of these things without knowing how to play Bridge. What is missing if we analyze the playing of Bridge into these component activities or achievements? (The analysis is formally the same whether one analyzes what one does or what one achieves.) Certainly, not some additional component, AQ. The difficulty is not that we have left out some component which is comparable to the ones which we mentioned. Rather, what is missing is something which the Process Description has and the Task Analysis doesn't have. That is the part-whole structure of the activity in question. In addition to what is represented in the corresponding Task Analysis, the Process Description for Bridge includes a delineation of the sequential structure of the game, the Option range at each stage, and the contingency structure connecting Options at different stages and connecting individuals to Options. Because of this, the Process Description does not have the limitations of a Task Analysis, and it is the case that whenever a Version of the process occurs, the process occurs. "The whole is more than the sum of its parts." In order to play Bridge, Gil must be able to do more than merely the list of things mentioned by Wil. He must be able to do each of them at an appropriate time or in appropriate circumstances. But knowing when to shuffle the cards is not another skill comparable to knowing how to shuffle the cards. And shuffling the cards at the right time is not the doing of something extra in addition to shuffling the cards. Thus, if we ask, what do you have to do that's different when you play Bridge well as against when you play poorly, the answer will be, "Nothing. You do the same things in both cases." What you do in either case is given by Wil's list. Likewise, if we ask, "What do you have to do that's different when you do psychotherapy successfully as against when you do it unsuccessfully?" the answer, again, is "Nothing. You do the same things Page 5

A Multicultural Psychology in both cases." And if we ask, "What do you have to do that's different when you do psychotherapy with Chicano clients as against when you do psychotherapy with Anglo clients?" the answer will be "Nothing. You do the same things in both cases." Such an answer is unacceptable to the interrogator because he knows that something is importantly different in the two cases. Yet, the answer "Nothing…" is the direct answer, and it is not merely provocative, either. We do not in fact have available some other set of descriptions of what one does in Bridge or in psychotherapy that would avoid the difficulty. For example, we do not have a ready set of higher level descriptions that incorporate the structural aspects of the process. The answer "Nothing…" is also unacceptable to the respondent, for he, too, knows that something is importantly different in the two cases, and he is well aware that that answer is either provocative or excessively misleading. Indeed, it is an infamous question, and it is not surprising that no direct answer is forthcoming. The problem occurs not merely in regard to Bridge or doing therapy successfully or doing therapy with Chicanos, but also for a multitude of similar cases (e.g., "What do you have to do that's different when you drive a car safely as against dangerously?"). However, we do have some ways of elucidating the differences. In doing so, we routinely refer not to what is done but to the powers which are exercised, and in this vein we commonly speak of "judgment" and "sensitivity." What distinguishes the successful or appropriate versions from the unsuccessful or inappropriate versions of the activity in question is the possession and exercise of the relevant judgment and sensitivity. Sensitivity is required to spot the reasons and opportunities, and good judgment is needed to weigh the reasons and exploit the opportunities. One acquires the relevant judgment and sensitivity in each case by having the relevant practice and experience. In thus examining the second and third of the Infamous Three Questions we begin to expose in some detail the need for structural representation and the place that it would have. In doing effective therapy with Chicanos as against Anglos, it isn't that you have to do something different in the therapy, but rather that you have to do the therapy differently. And doing it thus differently calls for the exercise of the relevant judgment and sensitivity. What judgment and sensitivity? Since these are achievement-anchored characteristics (Ossorio, 1966, Note 1), there is no conceptually rigorous independent description of them. However, if we ask this in a merely practical vein, one of the answers which suggests itself is, "The judgment and sensitivity that someone who was already a good therapist would have if he also understood and appreciated the difference between Chicanos and Anglos." 'This answer may need to be stretched a bit, but it will do approximately. But this brings us back to the first question, that is, "What is the difference between Chicanos and Anglos?" One of the more familiar and potentially successful answers is, "It's a matter of perspective. Every culture has a distinctive perspective. There's a Chicano perspective, and there's an Anglo perspective, and there are Black, Asian, Native American perspectives, and so on. Such a perspective is a distinctive way of approaching the world, and it corresponds to a distinctive mode of existence." I say "potentially successful" because, of course, that merely leads to the next question, "Well what is the Chicano perspective? And what are the Anglo, Black, Asian, etc., perspectives?" Many people have talked about cultural perspectives, but to date I have not encountered any direct, explicit presentation of a cultural perspective. Primarily, what one does find is histories. "This was the Black experience." "This was the experience of Page 6

A Multicultural Psychology the Chicanos in the Southwest." "This was the experience of Anglos on the frontier." "This was the experience of the Asians who came over and built the railroads." And so on. To be sure, the presentation of a history is often an effective device for generating personal understanding. In clinical practice for example, considerable understanding of individual persons is routinely accomplished on the basis of a personal history, and often, nothing more explicit by way of assessment is needed. But histories are not always as informative as we would wish, and in any case, even when the history provides a sufficient basis to go on, the task of giving an explicit, distinctive characterization remains. There is, of course, a view endemic to the worlds of science and letters to the effect that cultural and individual perspectives are not merely ultimate but obdurate as well, so that there is no hope that I or We will ever really understand Them. Since it is notorious that even in the absence of any perspective difference at all between Me and Myself, I don't do a very impressive job of understanding Me, such skepticism appears to be more than a bit precious. What does seem to be the case is that skepticism with respect to understanding across perspective differences is too often used to claim immunity from criticism or to evade the responsibility for attempting and achieving such understanding and acting on it. What is our formal access in such matters? Here we need to refer to the systematic set of Personal Characteristic (PC) concepts. What is implied if we describe a person as brave or cowardly; as intelligent; or as being generous or stingy with his employees? (These are trait, ability, and attitude descriptions, respectively.) We don't, for example, say that someone is generous with his employees just because he engages in behaviors which can be classified as “generous." Rather, we say he is generous when his generosity is notably more than what the situation calls for and therefore, also, more than what we could expect from just anybody. Similarly, we say he is stingy if his generosity is notably less than the situation calls for. If his level of generosity is merely what the situation calls for we, don't ordinarily say anything about that at all. And similarly with other PC descriptions. These characterizations, which we use both to describe people and to distinguish one person from another, reflect appraisals with respect to some sort of norm. The norm can be expressed adequately for our purposes as "merely doing what the situation calls for". How do the characterizations function? A geometric example may be helpful. Consider a two-dimensional coordinate system, with reference axes I and II; and a single point, A, having coordinate values A1 and A2 (see Figure 1). If we introduce a new pair of reference axes, III and IV, the point A will have coordinate values A3 and A4 on these axes. The new coordinate values, A3 and A4, will have a determinate relation to the old values, A1 and A2. The relation depends on θ, the angle through which reference axes I and II would have to be rotated to be superimposed on III and IV. Given θ, together with A1 and A2, the values A3 and A4 can be calculated (and θ can be calculated from A1 and A2, A3, and A4). In general, A3 will differ from A1 and A4 will differ from A2. That is, the coordinate values will be different in different coordinate systems, or frames of reference. These results will hold for any set of points and any number of dimensions. Frames of reference correspond to perspectives or outlooks. The point A (and any other figure, curve, or set of points) looks different (has a different description) in framework I, II as against framework III, IV. If we consider a person's frame of reference in relation to another person's frame of reference, the same considerations Page 7

A Multicultural Psychology hold. That is, (1) if we know how things look in the first frame of reference and also how they look in the second, we will understand the difference between the frames of reference as such; and also, (2) if we know how things look in one framework, and we know how the frameworks differ, we will be able to distinguish how they would look in the second framework. With respect to the latter, our discussion of "brave" and "cowardly", "intelligent" and "unintelligent", and "generous with his employees" is directly relevant. Such Personal Characteristic descriptions correspond to saying that reference axes I and II are rotated through a specific angle, θ, to arrive at framework III, IV. From what starting point? From the "standard normal person," that is, the hypothetical person who does merely what the situation calls for because his frame of reference is merely the sociocultural frame of reference which determines what the situation calls for. Change that person in this way, that is, make him brave, and you will have someone with an outlook or perspective from which things look to be of such a sort as to call for the behavior which leads us to call him "brave", or leads us to say that it expresses this trait on his part. Thus, given the PC description "He is brave", we understand how he sees things and how that differs from how "just anybody" (the standard normal person) would see things. Likewise, we understand that, how, and why he could be expected to act differently from just anybody. Thus, the terms in ordinary language that we use to describe one another can be used not merely to give an outsider's classificatory description, but also to put ourselves in each other's shoes and "see" the world from there. And we routinely do that. In short, it is our conceptual system of personal characteristics and individual differences which gives us formal access to persons and their perspectives and frames of reference. Now, if we can use PC descriptions for other people, we can use them for ourselves. We describe not only other persons, but also ourselves in such terms as "generous", "likes music", "good at mathematics", "values honesty", and so on. It works the same way with ourselves as with others. In describing myself in such ways, I codify my understanding of the ways in which I differ from the standard normal person. If I understand how I differ from the standard normal person and also how Wil differs from the standard normal person, I shall also be able to understand how Wil differs from me. This kind of understanding is of considerable social value and interest. However, arriving at it in this way is more complex than it needs to be, and most persons adopt a certain shortcut which is generally quite efficient and effective. That is, they use themselves, rather than the standard normal person, as the norm. The problem then changes from one with a double transformation to one with only a single transformation. Instead of the transformation from Me to the standard normal person and then from there to Wil, there is only the transformation from Me to Wil. Formally, this is an egocentric solution but it is by far the easier and more workable of the two, and so, inevitably, this is how it is generally done. This is not to say that there is simple agreement in judgments concerning the standard normal person or the deviations of Me, Wil, and others from the standard normal person or from one another. Rather, differences in this regard are codified in the same way as any other differences, that is, with Personal Characteristic descriptions. In this way, all personal differences, including differences about differences (and about differences, and so on ad infinitum) add up, not to chaos or "error variance", but to a single coherent phenomenon which is accessible to all of the disagreeing persons simultaneously. Page 8

A Multicultural Psychology It is neither simple sameness or simple difference that is fundamental here. What is fundamental is the conceptual logic of sameness/difference. This is a solution that is effective across cultural lines, for the logic of group differences is not essentially different from the logic of individual differences. If it is intelligible that Wil is in certain ways different from Me, it is equally and similarly intelligible that a group of people who are like Wil differ in the corresponding ways from a group of people who are like Me. Early studies of "national character" presumably were based on this insight. Descriptions of the Germans as methodical and orderly, or of the Italians as emotional and expressive, and of the English as unemotional and humorless, were clearly modeled on the logic of describing Wil as methodical and orderly, Gil as emotional and expressive, Jil as unemotional and humorless, and so on. History shows us that there is a potential problem inherent in this approach. Today, we would call it the problem of stereotyping. When we described the Germans as orderly and methodical, for example, implicitly we were saying that all of them were that way. If we wanted to recognize that not all of them were that way we had to disclaim, "Of course, that's not an exact fit, and there are a lot of individual differences." But such disclaimers clearly undermined the utility of "national character" descriptions. The failure to deal effectively with this dilemma appears to have been a primary reason why studies of national character were unfruitful and became merely historical curiosities. From today's vantage point the use of Paradigm Case Formulations (PCF) is clearly one of the ways of avoiding both horns of the dilemma, since a PCF is formally a way to map out a domain in terms of similarities and differences as against simple uniformities. However, history is again the great teacher and calls our attention to other possibilities of going wrong. Consider that in a PCF one first introduces a Paradigm Case and then introduces other cases as various transformations of the Paradigm Case. But now, suppose one adds the following interpretation: "Any case that is not a paradigm case is a defective case; the Paradigm Case is what it is a defective case of; and it is defective to the extent that it is different from the Paradigm Case." If the Paradigm Case is Me, then this is substantively, and not merely formally, an egocentric outlook. If the Paradigm Case is Us, then this is an ethnocentric outlook. There is ample documentation of the fact that the history of "cross-cultural research" was, to a degree that now appears extraordinary, a history of European or AngloAmerican missionaries, traders, and "social scientists" finding Them to be seriously defective cases of Us. Recent history has not been notably different, though the descriptions are generally less crude. Evidently, a Paradigm Case approach has been a standing temptation to ethnocentrism in perceptions and in theoretical formulations. We might well ask, therefore, why there would be such a thing as a standard normal person and, if there is such a thing for a given culture, whether there is a similar rationale for what might be called a "standard normal culture." After all, it might turn out that the "standard normal person" is simply an artifact of our descriptive apparatus, and as such is no more meaningful or illuminating than the fact that every distribution will have some mean value. In that case, we would be all the better advised to seek some other solution to problems of cross-cultural description. In fact, there is a certain kind of rationale for the notion of a standard normal person for a given culture. The concept is developed as follows: A. Needs and basic human needs Page 9

A Multicultural Psychology 1. In much of the psychological literature, "need" is used as a motivational concept. For example, "She has a high need for achievement'' and "He has a strong need to demonstrate his emotionality" are common examples of this way of talking. In contrast, in Descriptive Psychology, the paradigmatic concept of "need" is nonmotivational, as it is in most English usage. It is given by the following definitions: Need: A need is a condition or requirement which, if not satisfied, results in a pathological state. Pathological State: When a person is in a pathological state there is a significant restriction on his ability (1) to engage in Deliberate Action and (2) to participate in the social practices of his community. The two clauses in the definition of a pathological state are equivalent, since to engage in a Deliberate Action is to participate in one or more social practices of a community. In this framework, the general connection between needs and motivations is cognitive, not causal or coincidental. If I recognize that I have a particular need, then I shall be (prudentially) motivated to satisfy it. 2. To enter into a pathological state from a normal state is to suffer a loss of behavior potential, and accordingly, it is to be worse off. Because of this, the concept of "need" as logically connected to pathology serves as a Paradigm Case for understanding other uses of the term: "I need a drink of coffee right now." "I need a ride downtown." "I need to get a passing grade in the class." This way of talking involves what might be called trivial needs. Certainly, my doing without the coffee or the ride downtown or the passing grade would not be expected to result in psychopathology. But I would be worse off. My behavior potential would presumably be less. In this way, it does make sense to say that I need the coffee, the ride, and so on. To be sure, in ordinary discourse, "I need" is often a euphemism or a disguise for "I want", but that need not detain us. 3. If we escalate rather than trivialize, we arrive at the notion of a Basic Human Need (BHN): Basic Human Need: A Basic Human Need is a condition or requirement such that if it is not satisfied at all, Deliberate Action (and the participation in social practices) is impossible. As this rule-of-thumb definition indicates, any BHN reflects something fundamental and therefore universal about persons and their behavior as such. 4. I call this a rule-of-thumb definition rather than a merely stipulative one because the classic explication problem is involved. Traditionally, psychologists and others who have presented us with lists of "Basic Human Needs" have presented them as both universal and fundamental but have said little or nothing about the concept of "need" itself. If we do not know what it is to have a need as such, the uncertainty is escalated, not reduced, by being told that it is fundamental. However, if we look at the specific lists of BHN which these authors present, we find such items as "Order and Meaning", "Adequacy", "Autonomy", "Competence", "Selfesteem", "Safety and Security", "Physical Health", "Love and Affection" and so on. An examination of these shows that almost all of them clearly fit the definition above. For example, Adequacy, Competence, Order and Meaning, Self-esteem, and Safety and Security provide a clean fit. A few are either dubious or borderline (e.g., Love and Affection, Physical Health) and depend on how broadly we construe them. For example, Page 10

A Multicultural Psychology if the need for Love and Affection is interpreted as the need to have some standing in some community of persons, then it fits the definition. In short, the systematically grounded definitions of need, pathological state, and Basic Human Need illuminate both ordinary usage and traditional psychological listings. For example, they make it easy to understand why the contents of those lists are what they are and why different people present different lists of Basic Human Needs. However, there is no guarantee of a simple, exact match or reconstruction, and perhaps it is better not to take more responsibility for making those lists sensible and nonarbitrary than their authors have. 5. Since the present concept of Basic Human Need is a framework for paraphrasing the logical requirements generated by the concept of person and human behavior, particular Basic Human Needs will be universal, fundamental, and culture-free. Note, however, that the definition leaves open the question of what happens when such needs are only partially satisfied. (See Aylesworth & Ossorio, 1983; Lasater, 1983.) B. The satisfaction of basic human needs 1. Any given culture has a repertoire of social practices. These comprise what there is to do for a member of that cultural group. Archetypally, any Deliberate Action by a member of that group is a participation in one or more of those social practices. Whatever a member does is done by engaging in one or more of those practices. 2. For any given social practice, there are some number of ways of enacting it (participating in it, realizing it, embodying it). The number may be extremely large (consider how many different ways there are to play a game of chess or to feed a child). Engaging in a Deliberate Action is part of (one of the stages in) enacting a social practice in one of the ways it can be enacted. 3. For any viable cultural group the range of social practices and their Versions is such that, in general, a member can satisfy his Basic Human Needs by successfully enacting suitably chosen Versions of the available social practices. 4. What is required for a member to participate in the social practices of his community in such a way as to satisfy his BHN? In addition to opportunity, what is required is a set of personal characteristics by virtue of which the member has both the inclinations and the abilities which enable him to make the appropriate choices and to enact them appropriately in the range of occasions which arise for him. In short, the requirement is for judgment, sensitivity, and competence. The answers to "How do you operate successfully as an Anglo-American?" and "How do you do therapy successfully with Chicano clients?" are formally the same, that is, "By having the relevant sensitivity and judgment and acting on them competently. " This is the answer we arrived at in connection with the "Infamous Three" questions above. It is largely because they share these characteristics of judgment, sensitivity, and competence with respect to a common body of social practices that members of a group are able to understand each other intuitively and interact effectively with each other. C. The standard normal person 1. A person who does nothing more than successfully enact appropriate choices on appropriate occasions is one who can be described as "merely doing what the situation calls for." Such a (hypothetical) person would, for that society, be the Standard Normal Person. In principle, someone who has merely the inclinations and powers to enact appropriate choices on appropriate occasions is someone to whom other members of the society will not attribute personal characteristics other than double negative ones (e.g., "reasonably friendly," meaning "not really friendly, but not unfriendly either"), since, in effect, his attributes are merely social, not individual. Page 11

A Multicultural Psychology 2. Formally, to say that a person satisfies his Basic Human Needs is a double negative. That is, it is a way of denying (this is the first negative) that the person fails (the second negative) to live in a way befitting a person as such. It is precisely because many particular persons do fail in various ways in this respect that there is a point in saying that a given person has not failed in these ways. 3. To say that a given person lives as befits a person amounts, in a practical sense (i.e., allowing for the differences in conceptual idiom that prevent the locutions from being synonymous), to saying that he makes appropriate choices on appropriate occasions and enacts them competently. Thus, for a given society, the Standard Normal Person is one with merely that set of characteristics which enable him to satisfy his Basic Human Needs (as much as one can in that society) by participating in the social practices of that society. 4. Clearly, if the available set of social practices and their versions were different, it would in general take a different set of characteristics to have the inclinations and powers suitable for satisfying Basic Human Needs by participating in those social practices. But this is exactly what one finds in different societies, that is, different sets and structures of social practices. It follows that in general the Standard Normal Person will be different, and sometimes quite different, from one society to another because it will take a different set of inclinations and powers to satisfy Basic Human Needs by participating appropriately in these practices as against those. 5. Thus, in principle, if we attempted to characterize some other cultural group by giving a description of the Standard Normal Person for that group, that would be an informative and nonarbitrary way of characterizing that society and of contrasting it with ours. 6. Is there only one Standard Normal Person for a given cultural group? Perhaps, but it seems more likely that for members of the group there are several, corresponding to major status distinctions within the culture (see below). The preceding rationale provides a sensible basis for the notion of "national character" and for the concept of the Standard Normal Person as a vehicle for characterizing social groups and differentiating them. However, if we use this general approach in characterizing cultural groups, there remains the question of what baseline to use in giving such characterizations. For example, if there were something which could be characterized as a Standard Normal Society, then the Standard Normal Person for that society could reasonably be used as the neutral paradigm case from which deviations would correspond to personal characteristics. Since various cultures have been characterized as Apollonian, Dionysian, paranoid, and so on, it might seem that there is a Standard Normal Society or its functional equivalent. In fact, however, there is none. What has happened is that it is traditionally either Us or Our Standard Normal Person which functions as the "neutral" paradigm case. Thus, we face anew the question of whether it really is possible to avoid ethnocentrism in dealing with a variety of cultures and societies. For a case history in the exploration of the problem, consider the following hypothetical example modeled on a series of workshops developed by Joseph Silva. Case history—workshop session. Consider a cultural awareness workshop in which, at one point, the participants are exposed to some experimental findings concerning Hispanic-Americans and Anglo-Americans, who are compared on the basis of their responses to a set of questionnaire items. The session proceeds in the following stages: Page 12

A Multicultural Psychology 1. The participants are shown the items which appear in the questionnaire. However, in contrast to the order in which they appear in the questionnaire, the items are grouped into sets which correspond to the experimenter's definition of the variables under study. That is, all the items in a given set are those which "measure the same thing". 2. The item sets are described as measuring, respectively, Intrinsically Motivated vs. Merely Instrumental, Spontaneous and Natural vs. Artificial, Appreciation vs. Coercion, and so on. 3. The participants inspect and discuss the items and agree that they are suitable for measuring these variables. 4. The following experimental results are reported: Chicanos are more Spontaneous and Natural whereas Anglos are more Artificial; Chicanos are more Intrinsically Motivated whereas Anglos are more Merely Instrumental; Chicanos are more Appreciative whereas Anglos are more Coercive; and so on. 5. The participants discuss the results, refer to their own experience, and in general, show little surprise. 6. The workshop leader informs the participants that our current experimental conventions allow the experimenter unusually wide leeway (as compared with ordinary communicational contexts) to interpret his procedures and materials (or, conversely, to operationalize his variables), and that in the present case, on the basis of the very items and quantitative results they have been discussing, the experimenter reported that Chicanos are more pleasure oriented, less able to delay gratification, and more passive and fatalistic than Anglos. 7. The participants reexamine the items and discuss the implications of (a) the fact that they could be interpreted in both ways, (b) the fact that the experimenter interpreted them in one of those ways rather than the other, and (c) the fact that this experimenter was not atypical with respect to academic practitioners of "social science." One of the major points to be made with respect to such examples (and they are numerous) is the symmetry in the situation. For every rhetoric, ethnic or otherwise, there is a counter-rhetoric. The initial descriptions given by the workshop leader are not only no less valid, but also no less polemic, pejorative, and ethnocentric than those given by the traditional, "value-free" Anglo-American "social scientist." Although no methodology will by itself prevent ethnocentrism in operationalizing or characterizing variables or in interpreting empirical results, we do not have to encourage it. The history of cross-cultural studies provides convincing evidence that the logic of the Paradigm Case Formulation, particularly in the implicit and unexamined form in which it has been used, is a standing temptation to engage in the ethnocentricity of "They are a defective version of Us.'' Thus, an alternative formalism is desirable. Fortunately, an alternative is, in principle, available, for we know that a Paradigm Case Formulation is formally convertible into a Parametric Analysis. To give a parametric analysis of a given domain is to specify the ways in which one particular (or kind) within that domain can, as such, be the same as another such particular (or kind) or different from it. And fortunately, such an alternative is available in fact as well as in principle. Putman (1981) has presented the following parametric analysis of the domain of communities: =

, where Page 13

A Multicultural Psychology Co M S C L SP W

= = = = = = =

Community Member Statuses Concepts Locutions Practices World

That is, a Community is characterized by its members, its Statuses, its Concepts, its Locutions, its Social Practices, and its World. The concept of a community is not the same as the concept of a culture or an ethnic group, but it is closely related. "Community" includes "culture" in the sense that a culture embodied in a historical group (and embodiment is assumed throughout this paper in speaking of cultures) is a special case of a community. Every embodied culture is a community but not every community is a culture. What distinguishes cultures from other kinds of community is their historical, real world self-sufficiency and viability. A culture can exist, survive, and even flourish in the absence of any other community. In contrast, the communities of physicists, beekeepers, politicians, Whigs, government employees, and so on are viable only insofar as they are part of a larger community and ultimately, a culture. The features of viability and independence which are associated with culture carry with them the requirement of satisfying people's Basic Human Needs to a substantial degree; hence, these needs are, collectively, much more strongly associated with cultures as such than with other sorts of community. Parenthetically, the primacy of cultural groups over other kinds is not called into question by such examples as United Nations peace-keeping forces, multinational corporations, international scientific organizations, bilingual-bicultural individuals, and so on. The categorical dependency of other kinds of groups on a cultural group is not negated by the existence of historical cases in which a particular group is dependent on more than one cultural group at a time. Because of the differences between cultures and other sorts of community, the parametric analysis of Cultures is also somewhat different. =



Cu WOL M W S L SP CP

Culture Way of Living Members (Participants) World Statuses Language Social Practices Choice Principles

= = = = = = = =

=

, where

Since Language involves both concepts and locutions, this analysis is essentially the same as Putman's except for the addition of the Choice Principles parameter. To review briefly: Page 14

A Multicultural Psychology Members. Every community is composed of some number of members. These are individual persons who may or may not be also members of other communities. In general, cultures outlive individuals, so that there is a historical totality of members as well as a current set at a given time, and membership at a given time may be determined more by historical continuity than by current interactions. World. Every culture involves a set of beliefs, methodologies, ideologies, assumptions, presuppositions, and so on, concerning "the whole world." (Note that the expression "the whole world" is used here as a holistic description rather than a referential one.) Among these are formulations of (1) the place of the community in the world, (2) the history of the community, including its relations and interactions with other communities, and (3) the history of the world. Statuses. Every society has some kind of social structure which involves the differentiation and meshing of activities, standards, and values among different sets of individuals. This structure can be articulated in terms of statuses. Social Practices. Every culture has a repertoire of behavior patterns which constitute what there is for its members to do. Social practices are ingredients of organized sets or structures of social practices which we designate as "institutions." Raising families, educating children, passing laws, engaging in trade, and speaking a language are examples of institutions. Language. Every society has a language that is spoken by its members. Speaking a language is a special category of behavior, as may be seen by juxtaposing the formula for verbal behavior with the general formula for behavior: = =

< C, L, B>

Verbal behavior involves, categorically, Concepts, Locutions, and a set of Behaviors which consist of using the Concept(s). To say that a behavior is verbal behavior is to say that (1) the value of the Performance parameter is or includes a locution, (2) the value of the Know parameter includes the concept(s) corresponding to the locution(s), and (3) there is a set of behaviors, including the behavior in question, which involve acting on that concept. Choice Principles. Both an individual social practice and a set of social practices which make up a way of living have a hierarchical structure involving a multiplicity of options. Since participating in either one on a given occasion must be done in one of the ways it can be done, choices are unavoidable and many different individual life histories are possible, reflecting the variety of choices among options within social practices and among social practices. The range of options results in part from the range of different statuses for which different practices or different options are appropriate. The major part of social control is generally exercised in the form of constraints (i.e., behaving wrongly or badly is not permitted), rather than in the form of specific prescriptions. To the extent that behavior is not specifically prescribed, then in light of the significantly varied options available, some coherent set of principles is needed for choosing behaviors in such a way as to express and preserve the coherence of human lives and the stability of the social structure. By virtue of these considerations, the choice principles that are characteristic of a given culture or culture-status serve to portray that culture and to distinguish it from others, and at times may serve better than any other analytic device to express the "essence" of a culture or of some of the major statuses of a culture. Page 15

A Multicultural Psychology When it comes to specifying values of the parameters of a culture we find little difficulty in principle until we reach the last one (choice principles). 1. In principle, Members can be enumerated or identified by name. Questions about whether a particular person is a member of a particular culture are often settled by reference to the linguistic and other practices he engages in, the persons with whom he has interactions, and the persons and groups with which he has historical continuity. 2. A culture's World may be portrayed discursively, artistically, or systematically. As noted above, much of the literature on cultural perspectives consists of historical accounts of the experiences of a historical group or of mythological or other portrayals of their "belief systems." For a systematic portrayal, the conceptual/notational descriptive formats presented in What Actually Happens (Ossorio, 1971/1978) are available. 3. Statuses, social practices, and institutions have been the subject of many efforts at delineation, and various methods of representation are available. For systematic portrayal, the Process Description and Object Description formats (Ossorio, 1971/1978, ch. 3) have been used effectively. 4. Some difficulties would be encountered in giving precise and technically detailed descriptions of any given natural language. Ordinarily, however, such descriptions are at issue only in connection with relatively specialized enterprises. There appears to be no difficulty in attaining a suitable identification of a given language for most purposes, particularly since for most purposes the identification need not be unique. 5. In regard to choice principles, it appears that there are a number of distinct ways to distinguish or identify a kind of choice so as to be able to say that the behavioral selections of a given person or group exemplify that kind of choice. (Most of these are discussed by Marshall [1980].) a. The most direct method of identifying a choice principle, or selection principle, is by means of a policy statement. A policy statement is a direct prescription for choosing behavior. For example, "Always play it safe" is sufficient for guiding behavioral choice in a wide variety of situations. So also are "Guard your honor," "Never do anything you wouldn't feel right about afterwards," and so on. However, not all choice principles have the form of policies or could readily be put in that form. b. Reference to values is also a way of specifying choice principles, and it is used primarily descriptively rather than prescriptively, since values cannot be acquired merely by choosing them. To be told that a given person values security, family ties, fame, salvation, peace of mind, courage, and so on, in general gives us some important indications concerning how such a person will choose on a given occasion. Indeed, the study of values is one of the traditional ways of studying cultures. In this tradition, cultures are characterized by reference to their central values. However, this approach is marked by stereotyping and by an ambiguously explicit thesis of cultural determinism. Thus, the cultural determinist will say or imply that it is not only that all Chicanos (with a few exceptions, of course) are characterized by the values of immediacy, physical prowess, and religiosity, but also that these values (or having these values) are what make them do what they do, including what they do that is evaluated as maladaptive. It follows that many group and individual miseries are not worth trying to ameliorate, since they are the inevitable result of cultural values, and that the only way for such individuals to succeed in American culture is to lose their cultural identity. Page 16

A Multicultural Psychology But we do not need such a grotesque thesis as this in order to connect values and behavior. A person's values are defined as "the set of priorities among motivations that he has the ability to act on." It is because the specification of a person's values identifies motivational priorities that it also has implications with respect to behavioral choices. The connection is hardly less direct than is the case with policies. c. Slogans and mottos are also ways of identifying choice principles, and they show some overlap with policy and value statements. For example, "Never give a sucker an even break" is a slogan, but it could easily be thought of as a policy. "Duty, Honor, Country" is a motto, but it could readily be thought of as a way of identifying values. On the other hand, "Life is suffering," and "Might makes right" are not readily interpreted in either way but are just as informative with respect to a person's behavioral selectivity as are policies and values. d. Maxims are often indistinguishable from slogans, mottos, and policy statements. For example, "Life is suffering" could be taken as a maxim. On the other hand, "If the situation calls for a person to do something he can't do, he will do something he can do," is a maxim which cannot be readily taken as a policy, value statement, motto, or slogan. Pragmatically, maxims have the general character of warnings or reminders, and perhaps this is sufficient to distinguish them from other formulations of choice principles. The connection between warnings and reminders and behavioral choices is readily apparent. e. Reference to strategies carries the connotation of a problem-solving context. A strategy is always a strategy for accomplishing something or other. Otherwise, strategies may be considered a variety under the more general category of policies. f. Finally, we may also use scenarios as a way of identifying choice principles. In clinical practice, scenarios are used in giving individualized formulations of psychopathology. The explanation has the general form, "The degree of priority this person gives to the enactment of this scenario, in contrast with other forms of interaction, restricts his behavior potential to such a degree that it qualifies as a case of psychopathology." Here, the connection between the scenario and the behavioral choices is obvious. In a cultural context, the most relevant scenarios correspond to myths or to the lives of historical or literary figures. These latter are often called "culture heroes." A historical person can pattern his life on the life of such a cultural figure. Indeed, there is some speculation to the effect that a primary cultural function of myths is to provide just such patterns, and there is some current evidence to suggest that such patterns routinely influence masculine-feminine relationships (Roberts, 1982). If we know that people are living the life of Martin Luther King, or of Juliet or Cassandra, much of their behavioral choice-making is thereby explained. It is one thing to make formal provision for consistent choice-making. It is another to give actual cultural portrayals, using these resources. At the present time a group project is under way to produce such cultural portrayals for at least the following ethnic groups: (1) a Native American group, (2) Black Americans, (3) Chicanos, (4) Anglo-Americans, (5) American Jews, and (6) one or more Asian-American groups. These portrayals will be worked on by successive generations of students and instructors in the Multicultural Psychology program. The initial efforts, emphasizing World and Choice Principles among the cultural parameters, are informative. They also call our attention to the need for articulating the social structure of these groups in terms of statuses, social practices, and institutions. It Page 17

A Multicultural Psychology seems likely that once such an articulation is given, we can then use Paradigm Case Formulations to portray single individuals and their behavior in such a way that both cultural emphases and individual differences are effectively presented. We noted above that the logic of cultural perspectives is the same as the logic of individual perspectives, with the former being merely an extension of the latter (or perhaps the other way around). Here we may note another, similar parallel and continuity: the formulation of cultural perspectives within a community of cultures has the same logic as the formulation of different status perspectives within a given culture. Statuses correspond to perspectives. One of the maxims used in our social system simulation efforts is, "A person perceives events in terms of the values and concerns which go with his position in the organization, and he acts accordingly." It is a truism, of course, that whatever happens will in general have a different significance for an employee, a manager, a stockholder, and so on. Statuses correspond to norms for evaluating the behavior of historical persons in their embodiment of those statuses. With respect to a person's embodiment of a status, it is always formally appropriate to ask, "Did he do a good job of it?" or "How good a job of it is he doing?" For example, we may ask, "Did he do a good job of being a banker'?" "Did she do a good job of being a mother to John?" "Did they do a good job of being Baptists?" and so on. What is involved in doing a good job of being a banker, a mother, or a Baptist is precisely doing a good job of perceiving, appraising, and being motivated to respond to events and circumstances in terms of the values and concerns which go with those positions. Note that no particular level of practical success is implied. A person may do a good job of being a banker without being particularly successful in achieving what bankers try to achieve, though, of course, if a banker was completely unsuccessful at banking, we would be properly suspicious of how good a banker he was being. Some current observations suggest that Chicanos can fairly readily rank themselves and others in regard to how good a job they are doing of being a Chicano. Similar conclusions are drawn for Blacks. Presumably the same would hold for bankers, mothers, Baptists, and so on, for we do speak of "a clinician's clinician," "a baseball player's baseball player," and so on. Thus, we can articulate an additional "view" of the concept of status. We are already familiar with "status" as the concept of the place or position of an Element within a domain, with the position of a given Element (John, Mary, London, Peter's automobile, etc.) being determined by the relationships of all the Elements in the domain with one another. Now we can see that, when an Element is classifiable as a Person, what it is to be such an Element and to act as such an Element is (1) to appraise whatever happens and whatever is the case in terms of what is important to, or makes a difference to, such an Element and (2) to act in ways which reflect these appraisals. This equivalence holds not merely for Persons as such, but also for various more limited Person-classifications of Elements, for example, "Banker," "Mother," "Baptist," "Chicano," and so on. For to say of John that he is a banker, for example, is simply to give an incomplete specification of John's position in the community, and it is to identify a subset of John's relationships with other individuals in the community. This amounts to saying that what it is to be a banker, mother, Anglo-American, Chicano, and so on, is to have the reasons which the given state of affairs (the person's circumstances) would constitute for a banker, mother, and so on. And what it is to act as a banker, mother, Chicano, scientist, and so on, is to act on those reasons without Page 18

A Multicultural Psychology regard (practically speaking) for any of the other reasons such a person might have. One might delineate such other reasons by referring to other statuses which the person had, for example, investor, daughter, mayor, mother, Anglo-American, banker, and so on. Since a given person will have a variety of statuses, each corresponding to a subset of his total set of relationships, conflicts are a real possibility. (To paraphrase Gilbert and Sullivan, "As your loyal subject, I would say X, but as your father's closest friend, I would say Y; on the other hand; as a peer of the realm, I would have to say Z, and yet, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I would say…"). A person in such a conflict has conflicting reasons for acting. A banker processing a loan application from his son-inlaw, for example, may have such a conflict and may find that it puts a strain on his integrity as a banker. Similarly, a Chicano freshman in an Anglo-American university may have such a conflict and find that it puts a strain on his integrity as a Chicano (Silva, 1983). Conversely, a person can distinguish among the reasons he has as a banker, as a Chicano, as a scientist, as a father, and so on. This is because he can distinguish the reasons a banker, a Chicano, a scientist, a father, and so on, would have in given circumstances. Because of this, he will be able to understand, at a practical level, the reasons which other people who are Chicanos, bankers, scientists, fathers, and so on, do have. Of course, one who knows nothing of bankers, Chicanos, and so on, will not be able to understand, and his relationships with such persons will be different. We have said that to be a banker or scientist or father is to have, in fact, the reasons which the person's circumstances would provide for a banker, etc. But we noted that what holds for a banker holds because it is a special case of what holds for persons. The corresponding formulation for persons is that to be a person is to have, in fact, the reasons which one's circumstances would provide for a person. To be a person is, categorically, to act on reasons (engage in Deliberate Action) and, hence, to be rational. But, of course, a given situation will provide different reasons for different persons, who differ from one another in their knowledge, values, abilities, and dispositions, as well as in their relationships to other Elements in the real world. Thus, to have a particular reason in a given set of circumstances is, categorically, to have and to have made an appraisative formulation of one's circumstances. And it is to have an appraisal, from a personal perspective, of one's relationship to some part or aspect of the real world. Thus one's personal reasons for acting are an expression of one's status and relationships. In sum, the concept of status can be formulated in terms of position, in terms of relationships, in terms of standards, in terms of reasons, and in terms of perspectives. The different formulations give us different views of the same concept and the different idioms reflect different conceptual contexts or conceptual perspectives. Thus, in a reflexive vein, understanding the concept of status, which helps us understand perspective-taking, is itself an exercise in perspective-taking. With this understanding, we turn again to the group project of elucidating the several cultural perspectives. Although the project is under way, it is by no means complete at this time. Even so, we have been able to realize some of the formal possibilities inherent in such portrayals. These efforts are designated as technical exercises or applications of the multicultural framework. A. Methodology exercise. One of these applications is the descriptive portrayal of "research methodology" within a multicultural world, and a preliminary critical examination of known historical exemplifications of "research methodology" within a multicultural conceptual framework. The technical point of the exercise is to derive research methods not merely Page 19

A Multicultural Psychology as some vague, implicit function of differences in cultural perspective, but as literal exemplifications of the World, Social Practices, and Choice Principles characteristic of the culture. For a simple exercise, consider two moderately hypothetical cultures, Q and T, which are described briefly as follows: Culture Q involves a World in which (1) any given state of affairs can be brought about if only the correct technique is exercised; (2) there is an a priori general technique ("The experimental method") for bringing about states of affairs and certifying particular techniques or technical procedures ("operationalizations"), including verbal ones ("theories") as the correct ones; (3) knowledge is the same thing as certified theorizing; and (4) knowledge is created by the appropriate technicians using certified procedures and is only thereafter "applied" to tasks having a real world importance. Culture T involves a World in which (1) for some states of affairs, their routine achievement is a matter of exercising techniques and for many others it is not; (2) personal responsibility is an integral element in the way things happen, the way people interact, and the way techniques are exercised; (3) there is a radical difference between real phenomena and practical matters as against mere speculation and idle verbal constructions; and (4) knowledge is a matter of how deeply one understands, and such understanding may be expressed in a variety of ways, including practical effectiveness. Now consider the question of how one would provide a scientific basis for an important practical social change. For example, it might be a change from the phonic method to a gestalt method of teaching children to read in the public schools, or it might be a change from institutionalization to normalization for moderately mentally retarded persons. For our purposes, we will refer schematically to a change from C1 to C2 in a social system M1. Consider three major alternatives for providing a scientific basis for choosing between C1 and C2 in M1. 1. In the first alternative, one constructs a theory of social system M1, or of a class of systems, M, which includes M1 as a special case. One tests the theory using whatever subjects are available. More specifically, one tests some hypotheses from which one could conclude that C2 was an improvement over C1; this would involve, among other things, selecting a general criterion for assessing the relative value of C1 and C2. If the test of the hypothesis is positive, the change from C1 to C2 is instituted. Finally, a new criterion of value is selected, and an evaluation is made, experimentally testing the null hypothesis that C2 is not an improvement over C1. 2. In the second alternative, one categorizes the nature of the change from C1 to C2. One identifies other historical instances where that kind of change has occurred or is occurring. One devises a general criterion for what constitutes an improvement and one gathers data on those historical instances relative to that criterion. One uses an a priori theory of data (e.g., "sampling theory") to certify the data as showing whether or not that type of change is an improvement. If the change is certified as an improvement, one institutes the change from C1 to C2. 3. In the third alternative, one generates a representation of the social system M1 as it would be functioning if the change from C1 to C2 had taken place. One identifies the undesirable possibilities associated with the replacement of C1 by C2, bringing to bear the greatest degree of understanding available. The undesirable possibilities are ranked in the order of the degree of actual concern they generate. For each possibility that is of sufficient concern, one identifies the observable differences it would make if the undesirable possibility were in fact the case. The change from C1 to C2 is instituted in a limited way, and the relevant observations are made. If the Page 20

A Multicultural Psychology observations are sufficiently reassuring in regard to the undesirable possibilities, the change from C1 to C2 is made and the observations are continued. These examples have been simplified enough to make clear that the first two alternatives are better exemplifications of the World, Social Practices, and Choice Principles of Culture Q than of Culture T. Correspondingly, the third alternative exemplifies Culture T better than it does Culture Q. Thus, we would not find it surprising if Culture Q relied heavily on the first two alternatives in behavioral research or if they regarded these as the correct techniques for acquiring scientific knowledge. Indeed, one could understand that. Correspondingly, we would not be surprised to find a heavy reliance on the third alternative in Culture T. But we would be surprised if, for example, the third alternative were regarded as the correct technique for acquiring scientific knowledge in Culture T. Now suppose that a T scientist and a Q scientist both employed the third alternative, which of course is a simplified version of the Precaution Paradigm (Ossorio, 1981). We would be quite unsurprised if the two were concerned about different undesirable possibilities, if they gave different priorities to essentially the same possibilities, if they identified different observations as crucial, and if they decided differently with respect to C2 on the basis of the same data. Further, we would expect the Q scientist to be disturbed by such differences and the T scientist to be disturbed much less, if at all, by such differences. The Q scientist might well regard the T scientist as impossibly sloppy and subjective in his approach; the latter might well regard the former as impossibly naive, mystical, and unrealistic. B. Relativity exercise One of the issues with which we began was the problem of understanding a person who is acting within a different cultural framework or a different way of living. In this regard, it is too early to claim a significant general success. We have initiated the following sorts of effort. 1. Both for each of the cultures generally, and for research procedures specifically, we have asked, "How would a person operating within a Chicano (etc.) way of living view these behaviors on the part of an Anglo (etc.), and how would a Black (etc.) view both the activities and the judgments made about them?" We have also asked, "Given the Black (etc.) and Chicano (etc.) ways of living, what difficulties could we most expect a Black to have in understanding a Chicano, and vice versa?" Pursuing such questions provides practice and experience in operating with an intuitive understanding, limited though it may be, which extends across cultural lines of division. 2. We have also asked, for each way of living, "What kinds of strain does it put on human capabilities?" "What are its weakest points of articulation?" and "What would we expect to be the characteristic forms of psychopathology, given these strains and vulnerabilities and given that they have to be coped with within this way of living?" In the long run, such questions would lead to informative research and increased understanding both of cultures and of psychopathology (see, e.g., Aylesworth & Ossorio, 1983; Lasater, 1983). 3. We have also asked, "How is our understanding of individual cases different if we make use of the cultural perspective formulations we now have?" One example concerned a Native American who was in jail on a charge of child abuse and steadfastly refused to accept a bargain of a "guilty" plea in exchange for receiving probation rather than a prison sentence; the evidence for child abuse was considered to be conclusive. Here, we referred to a strong cultural emphasis on personal Page 21

A Multicultural Psychology responsibility and self-sufficiency, and to the standards with respect to parents and children. We concluded that it would be less surprising if the prisoner felt insulted and aggrieved over the whole affair then if he felt penitent or remorseful, and that suggested a different approach to the case. C. Cultural displacement exercise Beyond the problem of understanding across cultural boundaries, there is the problem of across-culture interaction and adaptation. In this regard, we can take as a paradigm case the case of the refugee. This is the case where, without any decisive preparation and on the basis of sheer necessity, a person has to leave the culture within which he has been socialized and live in a different cultural milieu within which he cannot simply retain the particulars of his former way of living. In this connection, we may refer back to the concept of the Standard Normal Person for a given culture or culture-status. A refugee from culture Q is not merely someone who is lacking in knowledgeability regarding culture T. Rather, he is someone who, as it were, has the wrong reflexes. Like the Standard Normal Person for culture Q (which he is likely to approximate), he is someone whose dispositions, sensitivities, and powers incline and enable him to make appropriate choices from the practices and options in culture Q and enact them appropriately. By virtue of this, he will in general be someone whose sensitivities, dispositions, and powers incline and enable him to make inappropriate choices from the practices and options of culture T and to enact them in defective ways. The direct result will be some significant failure to satisfy his basic human needs and a corresponding kind and degree of psychological distress. An analysis of the two cultures, for example in terms of the Standard Normal Person for each or for the relevant culture-statuses, would support substantial prediction of the psychological strain on the refugee and the design of ameliorative efforts (Aylesworth & Ossorio, 1983). Given the refugee as the paradigm case in a Paradigm Case Formulation of the cultural displacement, we may extend the analysis to encompass other cases. For example, if we change the move to the new culture from a forced move to a voluntary one, we will have the case of the immigrant (see Torres, 1983). If we delete the condition that the person leaves his culture in a simple geographic sense, we will have the case of the member of a minority ethnic group, such as Chicanos, Native Americans, and Blacks in the United States, or WASPs in Brazil, and so on, who must function in significant ways and degrees among members of a different ethnic group (Silva, 1983). Or again, if we make the cultural displacement temporary, we generate the cases of the diplomat, the Army wife, the multinational-corporation employee, and so on. And if we add a second displacement, we generate the case of the returned veteran with "delayed stress syndrome" (Sternberg, Note 2) or similar difficulties. In this way, understanding the case of the refugee helps us understand and work with various significant variations, and the formalism of the Paradigm Case Formulation helps us to exploit the significant similarities among cases without requiring a spurious universality. Thus far, our efforts at positive description bear out the value of Parametric Analysis in comparison to Paradigm Case Formulation as the primary formalism for delineating a multiplicity of cultures and cultural perspectives without encouraging ethnocentrism. The key difference is that a parametric analysis does not require a unique (and potentially ethnocentric) reference point to which the various other descriptions are relativized. Instead, it merely requires that the values of any given parameter be formally distinguishable from one another. There is, therefore, nothing to prevent the use of a given culture's own concepts in specifying the parametric values which Page 22

A Multicultural Psychology distinguish that culture from others. Of course, we are not forced to do that either, and there is nothing to prevent us from introducing systematic taxonomies or categorizations instead if we are so inclined. To be sure, we can also give ethnocentric specifications if we are so inclined, but it is not so easy for that to occur by simple default. Finally, it is important to distinguish between multicultural psychology and ethnic psychology. "Ethnic psychology" is an ambiguous locution. On the one hand, it refers to the psychological study of ethnic groups and the body of knowledge resulting from such study. In this sense, it is equivalent to "ethnic studies." On the other hand, an "ethnic psychology" refers to the systematic ways that an ethnic group has of understanding persons and their behavior. In this sense it is equivalent to what Heelas and Lock (1981) have called an "indigenous psychology," and as such can be expected to be different from one ethnic group to another. One of the relevant features of traditional ethnic studies is that their conceptual requirement is merely some framework for representing facts about a single ethnic group. This is because ethnic groups are studied one at a time within a merely classificatory framework, and the comparisons with respect to these classifications are carried out on an empirical level. The ethnic groups are not related in a conceptual way; rather, the findings concerning the ethnic groups are compared within a statistical, experimental, or anecdotal framework. There is a crucial difference here: just as the experience of succession is very different from a succession of experiences, so the conceptualization of a multiplicity of cultures is very different from multiple copies of the conceptualization of a single culture. Every ethnic study is somebody's ethnic study. As such, it is an exemplification of an "indigenous psychology" peculiar to some ethnic and/or other group. In particular, the "methodology" used in the ethnic study is such an exemplification. For example, as the "Methodology Exercise" above suggests, what is commonly referred to as "psychology" or "mainline psychology" is an ethnic psychology in that it is primarily a refinement of an Anglo-American indigenous psychology distinguished by a heavy emphasis on uniformity, technology, and bureaucracy. One of the values of a multicultural psychology is that it broadens our scientific perspective and not merely our cultural perspective. It reminds us that "methodology" involves a critical review of empirical procedures as means to given scientific ends, and a similar critical review of pre-empirical formulations as appropriate to their subject matter. Both of these contrast with the currently popular view that "methodology" refers essentially to a known set of procedural prescriptions which define what it is to "do science." Ethnicity in methodology is not ethnocentrism per se. The latter emerges when local preference and present custom are elevated to the status of timeless truths and criteria for validity. But if to be a banker is to have the reasons that a banker would have in given circumstances, then, to be a scientists is to have the reasons that a scientist would have in given circumstances, which is why science is a rational enterprise. And if to act as a banker is to act on those reasons, then to "do science" is to act on those other reasons and there will be various possibilities of doing so. To act appropriately in those ways is a matter of having and exercising the relevant judgment, sensitivity, and competence. The question, "What do you have to do that's different if you're doing science rather than any thing else?" is just as infamous as "What do you have to do that's different if you're doing psychotherapy with Anglos as against other ethnic groups?" has turned out to be. Predictably, because it is in accordance with the indigenous psychology of the Page 23

A Multicultural Psychology community, various familiar explicit answers have been proposed. Understandably, these answers have referred to bureaucratic and performative criteria such as quantifying data, controlling extraneous variables, using "objective" measures, testing causal laws, publishing in respectable journals, and so on. But to suppose that to act as a scientist is to quantify, manipulate variables, sample hypothetical populations, publish in journals, and so on, involves essentially the same error as supposing that to act as a Chicano is to eat beans and wear a sombrero, and it is just as egregious and benighted. We can do better than that.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT Originally published in 1982 as LRI Report No. 29. Grateful acknowledgment is made to Peter G. Ossorio and the Linguistic Research Institute for permission to reprint A Multi-cultural Psychology. Copyrighted 1982 by Peter G. Ossorio and the Linguistic Research Institute. Address: Linguistic Research Institute, P.O. Box 1294, Boulder, Colorado 80306.

REFERENCE NOTES 1. Ossorio, P. G. The behavior of persons. Unpublished manuscript, 1982. Published as The behavior of persons: The collected works of Peter G. Ossorio, Vol. 5. Ann Arbor: Descriptive Psychology Press, 2006. 2. Sternberg, C. The displaced person concept and Vietnam veterans. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Descriptive Psychology, Boulder, August, 1981.

REFERENCES Aylesworth, L. S., & Ossorio, P. G. Refugees: cultural displacement and its effects. In K. E. Davis & R. Bergner (Eds.), Advances in Descriptive Psychology (Vol. 3). Greenwich. Conn.: JAI Press, 1983. Heelas. P., & Lock, A. (Eds.). Indigenous psychologies: The anthropology of the self. London: Academic Press, 198 1. Lasater, L. Coal miners in the west: stress, mental health, and basic human needs. In K. E. Davis and R. Bergner (Eds.), Advances in Descriptive Psychology (Vol. 3). Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press. 1983. Marshall, K. The significance of criminal and noncriminal behavior. Doctoral dissertation, University of Colorado, 1980. Ossorio, P. G. Persons (LRI Report No. 3). Los Angeles and Boulder: Linguistic Research Institute, 1966. Ossorio, P. G. "What actually happens”. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1978. (Originally published in an earlier version in 1971 as LRI Report No. 10a. Whittier. Calif. and Boulder. Colo.: Linguistic Research Institute.) Ossorio, P. G. Conceptual-notational devices. In K. E. Davis (Ed.), Advances in Descriptive Psychology (Vol. 1). Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1981. (Originally published in 1979 as LRI Report No. 22, Boulder, Colo.: Linguistic Research Institute.) Ossorio, P. G. Representation, evaluation, and research. In K. E. Davis (Ed.), Advances in Descriptive Psycho1ogy (Vol. 1). Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press. 1981. (Originally published in 1980 as LRI Report No. 25. Boulder, Colo.: Linguistic Research Institute.) Ossorio, P. G., & Popov, D. Evaluating information systems (LRI Report No. 27). Boulder, Colo.: Linguistic Research Institute, 1981. Putman, A. O. Communities. In K. E. Davis (Ed.), Advances in Descriptive Psychology (Vol. 1). Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 198 1. Page 24

A Multicultural Psychology Roberts, M. K. Men and women: partners, lovers, friends. In K. E. Davis & T. O. Mitchell (Eds.), Advances in Descriptive Psvcho1ogy (Vol. 2). Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1982. Silva, J. What actually happened to José? Chicano freshmen in an Anglo university. In K. E. Davis & R. Bergner (Eds.), Advances in Descriptive Psychology (Vol. 3). Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1983. Torres, W. J. Puerto Rican and Anglo conceptions of appropriate mental health services. In K. E. Davis & R. Bergner (Eds.), Advances in Descriptive Psychology (Vol. 3). Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1983.

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